


CALL NOW FOR FREE SHIPPING! [Not a shipping fic. Handling fees still apply. All major credit cards accepted.]

by buttmaster



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-05
Updated: 2014-09-05
Packaged: 2018-02-16 04:38:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2256180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttmaster/pseuds/buttmaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bonus Round 3 fill for the HSWC. </p><p>"Dave/Karkat</p><p>Infomercial AU."</p>
            </blockquote>





	CALL NOW FOR FREE SHIPPING! [Not a shipping fic. Handling fees still apply. All major credit cards accepted.]

Dave Strider stood in front of a crowd, just filling several rows of bleachers. Directly in front of him was a countertop with a small covered object on top. Behind him was an attractive backdrop made to resemble a quaint suburban kitchen. He was dressed in a suit, the red one, of course, and his shades were nice and polished. Sollux Captor gave a countdown with his fingers from behind camera one and pointed at Dave right as spotlights lit up. The studio audience, predictably, and aided by a few blinking applause lights, went nuts.

"Sup. I'm Dave Strider, and you may know me as the inventor of the Bagelizer, the Hella Sponge, and Akwete Purrmusk's 10 Minute Titanium Glutes." Cue audience applause. "Well, today I am here to blow all that shit out of the water like I'm playing Battleship. What I've got here is going to revolutionize how you do a whole mess of crap, basically. Basically, hold on to your butts, because I'm about to kick them into the stratosphere with my latest product. But first." Above the stage a few televisions powered on, showing some video footage in black and white.

\---

Karkat Vantas had a long night. A shitty, stupid, shitty, double shitty fucking night, and he was happy to be back at his hive. He had learned, these past few sweeps, that being a threshecutioner was not nearly as glamorous as he had thought, or as Troll Will Smith had made it look. 'Damn you, Troll Will Smith.' As soon as the thought left his thinkpan, he regretted it. 'I'm sorry, Troll Will Smith. I didn't mean it. It was a long night.'

He walked across his lawnring and got to his front door, unlocking it and pushing it open, where, after about two inches of space, it made a resounding thud. "The fuck?" Karkat pushed against the door, and made no progress. He pulled it closed and slammed it open, doing little more than just scratching the hell out of his paint, mostly. "The fuck? What the fuck is going on?" He peered through the crack and found an alchemiter just... blocking the entire fucking doorway, which raised an entire ass capacity of questions.

\---

Meanwhile, back in the studio. "Has this ever happened to you? Big-ass alchemiters just in the most inconvenient of places? And you just think to yourself... 'What was I thinking when I put this here? I must be the biggest idiot in paradox space.' Am I right or am I 100% correct? The answer, is both." He winked at the audience, which went completely unseen because of his sunglasses. "So, by now, you must be thinking, Dave Strider, Resident Sex Machine, surely there must be a better way. And to that I say hell yes!"

Dave grabbed the unrelatedly hyper-absorbent cloth sitting atop his invention and whipped it off, revealing a circular platform about the size of an indoor countertop grilling system with a telescoping arm coming off the top. The entire thing was painted in hideous greens and oranges, with stripes of teal throughout.

"I give you the Alchemini, the latest and greatest in portable item alchemization technology. Yes, the Alchemini, all the strength of a full-sized alchemiter but the size of a somewhat clunky laptop from the mid '90s. Now, I'd tell you more, but we should see how our friend is doing."

\---

Karkat had to break a window. He had to break a window like a goddamn shitlord vandal to get into his own home. Because some fuckwit ass-snoggler had put a fucking alchemiter right in front of his door. Who? Who would do this? Who would even bother doing such a thing? And how did they even leave? The back... the back door. They probably used the back door. He could have used the back door. Karkat hated whoever did this, nearly as much as he hated himself, the biggest idiot in paradox space, who forgot he had a back door and now had a main chamber with broken glass all over the floor. Way to go, Karkat. A true champion.

He made his way to his nutrition block to reheat some leftover grubritos and then go the fuck to sleep. He went to the meal vault and pulled open the door, only to have a flood of grist pour out over his legs.

\---

On the screen, in big red Comic Sans, the words WAHT A BONER splashed across the video.

"Grist. The simple fact of alchemiters is they take grist, and a lot of it. And unless you want to use it pretty much as soon as you get it, you have to store it. What a nightmare! Or you could put it on the LOHAC Stock Exchange. And in this economy? Yeah, right. You may as well feed your hard-earned money right to a crocodile."

A voice popped up from the audience. "But, when you collect Grist, uhh, don't you just, kind of, store it on y--"

"So! The cool thing about the Alchemini, and by cool I mean ground-breaking. Like, the jackhammer of ideas here, people. Groundbreaking on the level of someone punching the dirt in an anime, is that the Alchemini, it just... stores your grist for you! For when you need it. No more market risks, no more unreliable torrent transfers, no more storing your grist in the fridge like some kind of idiot loser! And that's just one of the Alchemini's many features! Speaking of idiot losers, we should see how our pal in the video is doing."

\---

Karkat couldn't find the grubritos. He couldn't find a lot of things. Most of his food was gone. Also gone, most of his nutrition plateaus and his utensils. Because every single thing in his fucking nutrition block. Every. Single. Fucking. Thing. Was full of grist. The drawers? Grist. The cupboards? Grist. He was tempted, just for a moment, to dive under the sink and gulp down some drain cleaner, but, surprise, more grist! Unbeknownst to Karkat, every second of this was also caught on video and shown in full non-color to the studio audience. So, he had resorted to just gulping down a cold can of vegetation niblets the monster who did this must have missed.

And now? Now, all he wanted was to just go up to his ablution trap, have a nice warm soak, and go to coon. Put this entire feceshurricane of a night behind him, sleep the day away, and wake up refreshed and ready to deal with the utter cacophony of pailsquelches that his life had apparently become in the past 8 hours.

He made his way down the hall, shedding his sweater and pants and dropping them in a ball on the floor, leaving himself in his pair of bright red bikini briefs. As soon as he grabbed the privacy curtain around the trap, he heard a very non-troll noise, and was startled by two imps jumping upward. He let out a yell most unbecoming of a threshecutioner and pulled the curtain down from the cheap plastic rings holding it on the rod above, tangling himself up in the translucent material.

He went to grab his government-appointed threshecutioner sickles but... his sylladex, specibus and all, was in his pants. The imps chittered and hopped around and gave weak little kicks at him, and he flailed and squirmed in his ablution curtain, finally resigning to hastily caterpillar crawling out of the room, wrapped up like the very grubritos he planned on dining on.

He got to his pants, grabbing them in his rounded teeth, and got into his sylladex, his sickles appearing in his hands, rending the curtain... and then the imps. Grist... littered the hallway. Fuck it. Fuck soaking. Recuperacoon. Just... it was... it was recuperacoon time. He didn't even want to know where the imps came from. He opened the door to his respiteblock and... okay. He didn't want to know where the imps came from, but he was, however, curious as to where the liches came from. Especially as one let out a chattering skeletal shriek and slammed headfirst into him. His sickles, while nice for government-approved weaponry, was simply not made for liches. Cullings? Sure. Waving at some truants or sopored out slimeheads in a threatening matter? Oh, fuck yes. This? Not so much.

\---

"Oof." Dave gave a chuckle and shook his head. "I bet he wishes he had a more powerful weapon. You never know when you're just going to run into some random encounter. And you really never know when that random encounter is going to be too tough for you to handle. What if you woke up to a basilisk in your bed? Or a giclops rummaging through your fridge? This is the shit that we have to think about nowadays! And now our friend here is going to have to half-nakedly book it, pants dangling from his mouth like a silly puppy, to his alchemiter, and whip up some better strife weapons. See? There he goes." The words I WARNED YOU DOGG appeared on screen. "But if he had the Alchemini, he could just whip it out, grab something sharp or heavy, and boom, slap a pair of sickles in his hand and chop his way out of the situation. Just set that sucker down and forget it, he's got this."

\---

Karkat raced to the random alchemiter, liches in hot pursuit as he looked for something to combine his work tools with. Of course. The replica of Troll Will Smith's character's laser pistol from Subjugation Day, the sci-fi action hit where he plays an invading soldier having to help crush and conquer and entire planet of lesser beings. He slammed them both on the platform, paid the grist, and he had the weapons, which he buried right in the faces of the two liches, pulling the triggers now located on the handles, the curved blades growing green and hot before zapping their skulls from the inside out. It was over. It was finally over. It had to be.

\---

"Just imagine how much easier it would be with the Alchemini. The best part? It makes a mean fucking cheeseburger too. You can load the middle of the patty up with whatever you want. Bacon? Sauteed onions? Another burger? Alchemini will do it. No questions asked. It doesn't question you. It doesn't want to interfere with your biz. It is low maintenance, and so easy the dumbest of you in the audience can even use it, no problems. Your grandma could use this. This thing will whip up an ice cream sandwich made out of edge-only brownies. I frankly have no fucking inkling of an idea what a panini is. But the Alchemini? The Alchemini will make you a panini. It will make you a panini pizza. And this shit can be yours for less than twenty boondollars, plus processing fees. And if. And. If. If you act now? I will throw in a second Alchemini. And if you pay an extra twenty boondollars? I will throw in not one, but two, two. I will throw in two jumper block extensions, two holopads, and, are you still following me, camera guy? I know I'm saying two a lot. But I promise I am almost done. And a pack of twelve punch card shunts! So, basically, give me your fucking money."

That voice in the audience again. "Uh, but, can't we basically just... make our own Alcheminis? With our... alchemiters, uh, at home?"

Dave looked over at Sollux and made the cut motion across his neck, turning to the audience member. "Look, bro. I have a legal team comprised of all the versions of me who decided to take up an interest in law, and I will have them on your ass so quick, and in such a great number, that you can wear them as pants. Pants that will sue you back to Beforus days. I'm Dave Strider, dude. I will snaffle the shit out of you if you don't get out of here." Dave spoke into a headset. "Equius? Yeah. I'm kicking someone out. Don't let this little shit get a totebag, I swear to god, dude. No tote. And no ten boons either." Dave went back to his counter and smirked. "Okay, so, thanks for coming out! See my staff at the exit for your audience pay, and have a nice night!"


End file.
